The Biochemistry and Tissue Engineering Core (BTEC) will provide technical and personnel support for facilitating, standardizing, and implementing the collection, management and analysis of tissue samples. The BTEC will centralize and coordinate the scientific needs of Project #3 and Project #4 by providing considerable economy of effort and reduction of overall costs of the individual research projects. This Core will also support Project #1 and Project #2 by collecting, storing and analyzing biological samples (mostly sera) from these two projects and providing assays developed by Project #3. The BTEC will support investigators by providing animals for individual experiments, collecting animal and human tissue samples and performing standardized testing and data management (record keeping). The BTEC intends to aid each project by providing technical, instrumental and personnel support which are (i) commonly used by several projects or (ii) occasionally used by investigators but require special technical or safety regulations or (iii) require special equipment or technical experience. The BTEC facility is composed of 3 major Core units. The Animal Care Core Unit keeps rabbits, performs pretreatment and post-treatments of animals that are used for the development of different animal models, sacrifices animals and collects tissue samples. The Tissue Procurement and Histology Core Unit will support the Projects with collecting animal tissue, serum samples and human lumbar spine discs from cadaveric tissue or from the operating rooms of RPSLMC. This Unit will perform MRI on human tissues, and X-ray analysis of both human cadavers and animals for the detection of disc degeneration. Disc samples removed from either humans or animals will be assessed macroscopically and will be prepared for further studies, and transferred to either Unit 3 of the BTEC or to the individual Projects for specific assays. This Unit will generate and maintain a computer database, cataloging all animals, and animal and human tissues with their appropriate test records. Thus, this Core facility will help investigators by collecting tissues for specialized analysis, performing histology tests, and stoning tissue samples for further analyses. The Cell and Tissue Culture Core Unit will standardize and perform tests required by the different projects. Tissues will be prepared for cell isolation or placed in tissue culture medium. Cells or tissue in medium will be transferred for the individual projects for further treatments. RNA isolation from cells or tissue will be performed and RNA samples will be transferred for the individual Projects. Serum samples will also be tested by this unit. Since many of these techniques frequently require combinations of different methods and protocols, we intend to centralize these three Core Units into one Core facility directed and coordinated by one person, to guarantee the most effective and efficient integration of research approaches.